July 4, 2010

This was the scene on the Terrace last night, watching the big fireworks show across the lake...

What a throng! It was like fireworks Woodstock. Replete with nudity: When the show was over, and much of the crowd, including (we will assume) all the children, had cleared out, a few young guys shed their clothes, dove into the lake, swam around, hopped out, ran to the end of the pier, and dove in again. One display and then another.

When the show was over, and much of the crowd, including (we will assume) all the children, had cleared out, a few young guys shed their clothes, dove into the lake, swam around, hopped out, ran to the end of the pier, and dove in again.

@Jason I tried to get a picture of them swimming, which was mostly heads moving around in the dark water. Looked like muskrats, Meade said. But the pictures are too dark to see anything. When the guys jumped out and ran around, I didn't want to photograph that. Didn't even consider it. If they were posing and deliberately displaying themselves, I'd have considered taking pictures.

Expat(ish):One question: you guys have 4th of July fireworks on the 3rd of July?

Sometimes they'll have them a week ahead of time. The thing is, every town wants to have fireworks, but they also want a big audience, so in any one geographic area there can be several displays on different nights.

We took the pontoon all the way from the south end of Waubesa, through Monona, to the north end of Mendota parking right underneath the fireworks. Great show as always, this year we smartened up and had a pickup van at the locks, and I drove all the way home solo, worrisome low on fuel. Was home by 1:00am. Only mishap to report was having to yank a panfish jig out of my shoulder blad from a wayward cast from on the kids. Myself that is, couldn't get any of the women to do it.

Somebody down the road (Stow, Kent) did a fireworks show that sounded like the third day at Gettysburg. A little too much; the pups ran for cover. Got a look at the tail end driving The Blonde to work (for what may or may not have been the last time).

Ann Althouse said...

When the show was over, and much of the crowd, including (we will assume) all the children, had cleared out, a few young guys shed their clothes...

Ever since 9/11, somebody has always been trying to revive the (late) 60s. Thank God, it's never taken hold.

Did Althouse miss "covering" the World Naked Bike Ride, "which rode boisterously through the downtown Madison on Saturday, June 19"?

Perhaps because she was a rider?

Does the Madison Police Department understand the meaning of the word 'genitalia'?

..."I asked [the ticketing officer] what genitalia was, because I know the meaning of genitalia does not mean breasts or nipples," says Zeise. The officer informed her that all the riders had been warned plenty of times to cover up and she could dispute her disorderly conduct citation in court.

According to Zeise, early on in the event, the entire group of naked riders had been stopped by Madison Police officers and specifically instructed over a megaphone to cover their "genitalia." Zeise begrudgingly, but dutifully, cooperated by covering her bottom-half with shorts, and then continued the ride only to be ticketed later.

"I was fully ready to comply, but we never received a direct 'you need to have fully-covered breasts,'" says Zeise, who was one of multiple women issued citations for being topless during the ride. Zeise also has concerns about the forceful manner in which she saw police officers force two naked female riders off of their bikes.

She's not alone in her complaint about the way police officers handled the event. Many of those who received $429 disorderly conduct citations say they intend to contest them in court.

"What is wrong with a few boobs?" wonders Sarah, a co-organizer of the ride who asked that her last name not be used. Sarah also received a disorderly conduct citation for riding topless.

Click the Ripley Toll Barrier, I-90, in western-most New York State: http://www.thruway.ny.gov/webcams/index.html

If the camera is facing east, you'll see a parking area for trucks adjacent to the eastbound lane. If the camera is facing west, you'll see the traffic heading into Pennsylvania.

Because when I was a kid I wanted to be a cowboy, a "real" cowboy, riding a massive, diesel-powered 18-wheeler 'cross country all by myself, the dual stacks blowing fire and smoke into the endless cowboy sky. Shifting 13 gears until I reached California, then back again - always pushing, hardly sleeping, eating standing up.

Now when I want to remember being a cowboy, I turn on the camera... at Ripley, and Richmond, and points in between. Because even on the 4th of July, the real cowboys are out there, riding the highways, climbing the mountains, crossing the painted deserts.

Out in my neck of the woods, the local suburbs were split around 50-50 between doing their fireworks last night vs. tonight. I think the ones who did theirs yesterday probably wanted to have the big to-do on Saturday night for the benefit of those who don't have tomorrow off.

But a lot of people do have tomorrow off, so it would seem, and a few places took Friday as a holiday as well.

Happy barely belated Fourth to all (except on the West Coast, where this greeting may be seen on its usual day).

Best fireworks event I've ever been to was a kind of DIY affair - as many as a couple of thousand beachgoers out on Chesapeake Beach, in Va Beach, Virginia, many loaded with as many fireworks brought from a variety of states with "lax" fireworks laws. A couple of miles of beach, with literally millions of dollars worth of fireworks going off, all around. July 4th, 2008. And there were no reports of serious fireworks related incidents the next day.

Of course, the nannies were on full alert in 09', putting up flashing road construction signs on just about every approach to the beach reminding everyone that fireworks are prohibited.